New Publication: Automated Extraction of Annual Erosion Rates for Arctic Permafrost Coasts Using Sentinel-1, Deep Learning, and Change Vector Analysis

New Publication: Automated Extraction of Annual Erosion Rates for Arctic Permafrost Coasts Using Sentinel-1, Deep Learning, and Change Vector Analysis

August 1, 2022

I’m happy to share my newest publication on combining Sentinel-1 SAR data with deep learning and change vector analysis for quantifying erosion rates of Arctic permafrost coasts in the open access journal Remote Sensing by MDPI together with my co-authors Andreas Dietz, Tobias Ullmann and Claudia Künzer.

 

From the Abstract: Arctic permafrost coasts become increasingly vulnerable due to environmental drivers such as the reduced sea-ice extent and duration as well as the thawing of permafrost itself. A continuous quantification of the erosion process on large to circum-Arctic scales is required to fully assess the extent and understand the consequences of eroding permafrost coastlines. This study presents a novel approach to quantify annual Arctic coastal erosion and build-up rates based on Sentinel-1 (S1) Synthetic Aperture RADAR (SAR) backscatter data, in combination with Deep Learning (DL) and Change Vector Analysis (CVA). The methodology includes the generation of a high-quality Arctic coastline product via DL, which acted as a reference for quantifying coastal erosion and build-up rates from annual median and standard deviation (sd) backscatter images via CVA. The analysis was applied on ten test sites distributed across the Arctic and covering about 1038 km of coastline. Results revealed maximum erosion rates of up to 160 m for some areas and an average erosion rate of 4.37 m across all test sites within a three-year temporal window from 2017 to 2020. The observed erosion rates within the framework of this study agree with findings published in the previous literature. The proposed methods and data can be applied on large scales and, prospectively, even for the entire Arctic. The generated products may be used for quantifying the loss of frozen ground, estimating the release of stored organic material, and can act as a basis for further related studies in Arctic coastal environments.

Full Article:  Philipp, M.; Dietz, A.; Ullmann, T.; Kuenzer, C. Automated Extraction of Annual Erosion Rates for Arctic Permafrost Coasts Using Sentinel-1, Deep Learning, and Change Vector Analysis. Remote Sens. 2022, 14, 3656. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs14153656

you may also like:

Contribution at SilviLaser Conference in Quebec

Contribution at SilviLaser Conference in Quebec

At SilviLaser 2025 in Québec City, PhD candidate Julia Rieder (EORC, University of Würzburg and staff member of EO4CAM) presented her work on "European Beech under Drought: Effects of Topography, Competition and Soil Water Availability." Her study uses LiDAR to reveal...

EORC at Remote Sensing Symposium in Darmstadt

EORC at Remote Sensing Symposium in Darmstadt

On 2 October 2025, Dr. John Friesen and Dr. Julian Fäth from the Earth Observation Research Cluster (EORC) at the University of Würzburg and staff members of EO4CAM took part in the symposium "Vom Orbit zur Entscheidung: Satellitenfernerkundung in der...

New Team Member at the EORC: Sonja Mass

New Team Member at the EORC: Sonja Mass

Sonja Maas joined the Earth Observation Research Cluster (EORC) in October 2025 as a research assistant for the EO4CAM project. After finishing her bachelor's degree in forestry, Sonja Maas enrolled in the EAGLE M.Sc. program at the University of Würzburg, where she...

EAGLE MSc Student Isabella Metz Wins Prestigious IFHS Student Award

EAGLE MSc Student Isabella Metz Wins Prestigious IFHS Student Award

We are delighted to share the exciting news that our MSc student Isabella Metz has been awarded the 2025 International Federation of Hydrographic Societies (IFHS) Student Award for her outstanding research on: “Analysis of Uncertainties for Error Detection and...

Josipa Subotic joined as a DBU fellow

Josipa Subotic joined as a DBU fellow

We are delighted to welcome Josipa Subotić to the Earth Observation Research Cluster as a DBU fellowship visiting researcher. Since September 2025, she has been working on her project “Detection of Snow Surfaces in the Alps Using Multispectral Satellite Images and...